


Reveille

by OldShrewsburyian



Category: Elementary (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: 5 Things, 5+1 Things, Background Case, Breakfast, Breakfast in Bed, Canonical Character Death, Classical Music, Coffee, Domestic Fluff, Friendship, Friendship/Love, Gen, Gen or Pre-Slash, Grief/Mourning, Humor, Male-Female Friendship, Morning Routines, New York City, POV Joan Watson (Elementary), POV Third Person, References to Shakespeare, Shakespeare Quotations, Sherlock Holmes & Joan Watson (Elementary) Friendship, of an idiosyncratic kind
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-22
Updated: 2018-03-22
Packaged: 2019-04-06 07:32:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,605
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14052012
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OldShrewsburyian/pseuds/OldShrewsburyian
Summary: 5 times Holmes woke Watson, and 1 time he didn’t. Knowledge base through season 4, spoilers through season 3. These five mornings track a chronologically vague timeline from the early days of Holmes and Watson's professional partnership through the aftermath of her move back to the brownstone.





	Reveille

**Author's Note:**

> Humor abounds, verisimilitude is confined to the mentioned New York neighborhoods and gleefully left by the wayside when it comes to the invention of mentioned cases.
> 
> This is my first fic in this corner of Sherlock Holmes fandom, so feedback on voicing/characterization would be particularly appreciated.

1.

“Say that she frown; I’ll say she looks as clear as morning roses newly washed with dew.” 

“Mrr,” says Joan Watson, opening one eye. 

“You are prophetic, Watson!” returns her partner. “Murder it is. Coffee, yoghurt, fruit — we have a fatality in a florist’s shop.” 

Joan yawns and reaches out blindly for the coffee cup. After two sips, she asks: “Who goes to a florist’s at seven a.m.? And what was that bit about roses?” 

“A very good question, Watson! Or rather two. In this case, the florist’s assistant — guilty party? intended target? who can say? — and _Taming of the Shrew_.” 

“Huh,” says Joan. “Don’t get any ideas.”

 

2.

“Extreme caution is advised, Watson!” 

She sits bolt upright in bed. “What?” 

“Trees,” says Sherlock cryptically. He is grimacing in the way that indicates he’s trying to calculate for the effects of unpredictable variables. “Spring, in the lamentably twee idiom of the meteorologists, has sprung, or to quote Mahler: _Der Lenz ist da, sei kommen über Nacht! Aus tiefstem Schauen —_ ” 

“Fascinating,” interrupts Joan dryly, halfway through the first cup of coffee. “And this has what to do with extreme caution?” 

“You will observe,” says Sherlock, “that I have supplied you with two capsules along with your coffee. This is not an indication that I have begun an elaborate self-experiment in which you are to function as the control; it is the administration of a prophylactic.” She blinks at him. “You have a tree pollen allergy.” 

“How did you…? You know what, never mind. Forget I asked, and leave so I can get dressed.” 

He leaps to his feet with insultingly elastic alacrity. “Right you are, Watson! Never fear, our crime does not call us to a park, but one can never discount the possibility that a financial firm will have planted flowering trees in a vain attempt to make their premises appear fit for human habitation.”

 

3.

“What are your views on Italian food?” 

“Good morning to you too.” 

“I hope you are prepared to look demure and Hepburnesque.” 

“What the — demure?”

“A stretch, admittedly, but I have the utmost faith in your histrionic abilities. We are to venture, Watson, into a historic heartland of organized crime in this fair city. It is also a historic center of superlative Italian cuisine. We can stock up on olive oil, anchovies, fresh pasta.… If we are very fortunate, we may be able to obtain some burrata and a young hare.” 

“Oh good,” says Joan, shrugging into her cranberry cardigan. “I’d hate to let a major crime scene get in the way of our grocery shopping.” She takes in the outfit laid out on the foot of the bed. “Was that in my closet last night?” 

“The dress was; the hat was not.” 

“It’s a bit more Ingrid Bergman than Audrey Hepburn, don’t you think?” He tilts his head to one side, considering this. She leaves him to ponder, but he catches up with her halfway down the stairs. 

“It is possible,” he concedes. “I’ve seen 'Casablanca' more often than I have 'Roman Holiday.' It’s a fascinating layering of truth and fiction, Watson — to watch it is to contemplate an archaeology of artifice.” 

“Mm,” says Joan, standing over the coffee maker. “You want to tell me what this crime that requires a costume department to solve actually is?”

 

4\. 

She comes awake with a start. If there’s sound coming from downstairs, it is now no more than a low hum… but surely she could never have imagined a trombone fanfare? Her subconscious wouldn’t be so cruel. She squints at her alarm clock: 6:23. And now whatever the hell he’s doing involves the Marseillaise. Joan lies back and hopes it will go away. For a few blessedly quiet minutes, it seems as though it might, but no — 6:31 and the trombones are back, now with cymbals. Joan Watson sighs, and gets out of bed. When she is halfway downstairs, she hears gunfire.

“What the hell?” When she skids into the living room, Sherlock is standing absolutely motionless, his head bowed, palms open at his sides. And then the bells start. She has to admit, the piece is hair-raising, heard in the same room on a no-expense-spared sound system. She moves to stand next to her partner. The evidence board has changed since last night. The opera singer and the priest have vanished from the web of suspects, leaving only the restauranteur. Of course, the cabbages would have been too bulky, but if the revolver had been concealed among the beets…

“Congratulate me, Watson,” says Sherlock, when the last triumphant notes of the 1812 Overture have died away. “I have solved the case.”

“Yeah,” says Joan. “I kind of figured.” 

 

5\. 

She comes awake gradually, to the combined aromas of coffee and bacon, and, beneath those scents… 

“Ah, Watson!” cries her housemate from the threshold. He is holding a tray; more remarkably, there are two plates on it. “I’m glad you’re up; the creation of the traditional English breakfast is a fine and delicate art, and the food should be consumed immediately upon serving.” 

Joan obediently stacks her pillows behind her. The plates contain not only coffee and bacon, but eggs and sausages, mushrooms, and tomatoes — all of them, to judge by the smell, cooked in generous quantities of butter. 

“I know you don’t like baked beans,” says Sherlock. “Inexplicable aversion, in my view.” 

“Uh-huh,” says Joan. “What did I do to deserve this?” 

“My dear Watson, can you ask? Had you not identified the significance of the missing tea varietal, I have no doubt that we would still be alerting Chinatown’s criminal elements to our presence even now, without progressing towards the solution of the only theft that really mattered. Or rather, we would be doing so later today, and I would not have slept. Besides — ” he waves one long-fingered hand — “use every man after his desert, and who should scape whipping?” 

“Mm,” says Joan around a mouthful of buttered toast. “What is it with you and Shakespeare?” 

“Did I never tell you about my time on the boards at boarding school?” 

She shakes her head. “I am absolutely sure I would have remembered that.” 

Sherlock interrupts his attentions to his egg to grin wolfishly at her. “My Hotspur was particularly praised.” 

“Let me guess, your Hamlet was disturbingly credible?” 

“I’m not sure whether you mean that as an insult or a compliment, Watson.” 

“Neither am I. My response to these sausages is definitely a compliment, though.” 

“Thank you, Watson. You’re too kind.”

 

& 1

It’s better at the brownstone than at her apartment. That’s not saying much. It’s a relief not to be in the spaces she shared with Andrew. It is still strange to never have an incoming text be from him. It is still strange to sleep alone. It is still wretched to turn over and reach for a body that isn’t there. On bad nights, she sleeps on the couch. The sofa is too narrow to hold anyone else; she can press her side into the seam of the cushions and it will cradle her. At some level, she knows it’s a penance. This is who she is now: a detective who sleeps among the tools of her trade, alone. When she wakes up, it takes less effort to roll off the couch than to force herself out of bed and down the stairs. By the time she’s made the coffee, she’s restarted the process of adjusting to her new reality. 

Sometimes she has nightmares. She’s fighting off Andrew’s murderer, or she’s fighting through a crowd to get to him, or she’s at the operating table and the man under her scalpel is her boyfriend and she cannot save him. “No!” cries Joan, as Moriarty is about to shoot Andrew, and falls off the sofa. She comes half-awake, tangled in the fleece blanket. She’s landed on one wrist, but even staying here is preferable to facing full consciousness. She burrows her head into the crook of her arm.

There is the warm weight of a hand between her shoulder blades. “Andrew?”

“No, Watson.”

“No!” It is a wail of protest; she is not sure against what.

“All right, Watson.”

She becomes aware of the chilling ache of hip and knee against the floorboards as the contact is removed. “No,” says Joan again. 

“Shh, Watson,” says her partner’s voice again. “You’re all right.”

Her tears come again, then, as he lifts her into his arms, and she reaches out to strike, clumsily. But she is very weary, and she knots a handful of fabric in her fist and holds on. The creaking of the floorboards and the murmur of his voice lull her back to sleep.

“No,” says Joan, when he tries to put her down. He is warm and solid and she cannot bear to lose him.

“My dear Watson,” says Sherlock, “I cannot ensure that you are properly settled if — ” She tightens her grip. His sigh is a movement under her head. “All right, Watson. All right.” Her mattress creaks under their combined weight. And Joan allows herself to be comforted: by the familiar coolness of her pillow, by Sherlock’s hand against her back, by the reassuring steadiness of his breathing.

When she wakes, the slant of the sunlight tells her it is late morning. She stretches, discovering aches, listening for the sounds of her housemate. Coming more fully awake, she discovers, under the blankets, his t-shirt. It is still wrinkled where she clung to it; it is still redolent of him. Joan inhales deeply. Time to see what the day holds.


End file.
